A new study has found that the Facebook-owned photo and video sharing app Instagram is the most invasive app. pCloud, a cloud storage firm collated data based on App Store’s new privacy labels and found through their research that Instagram shares over 79 percent of users’ personal data with third-party companies. This data includes everything from the data it collects like your personal information, purchasing information, and even your browsing history. Apart from this, the app also uses over 86 percent of users’ data to sell them more of the Facebook group’s own products and serve them relevant ads on behalf of others.
After Instagram, Facebook has been reported to be the second in the “most invasive apps” list. Ironically, both these apps belong to the same social networking giant Facebook. Facebook reportedly shares 56 percent of collected data to third-party companies. This also includes personal data, purchasing information, and browsing history. As opposed to this, apps like Signal, Clubhouse, BIGO, LIVE, etc. are found to be on the list of safest apps to use.
Instagram, Facebook Most Invasive Apps: Share Most Personal Data
As said before, pCloud research has found Instagram as the most invasive app, and it is followed by Facebook. The research has found that most percentage of the data collected by these apps is shared with third parties. Figuratively, Instagram is found to share the most amount, ie. 79 percent, of user data with third-party companies. Moreover, a large part of the data by Instagram and Facebook is used by these apps for their own marketing benefits.
On the other hand, the research has found communication apps like Signal, Clubhouse, Skype, Microsoft Teams to be collecting no data at all. Netflix and Google Classroom are also found to be not collecting any user data, making all of these apps the safest apps to use on the Apple App Store. Other social media apps like BIGO, LIVE, and Likke are also listed amongst the top 20 safest apps, which are said to collect just 2 percent of users’ data.
pCloud in its blog post said that Instagram and Facebook share most of the user data with other companies, and both apps use 86 percent of data for their own marketing benefits. Most details including purchasing information, personal data, and browsing history is shared with other companies. The company in its blog said, “No wonder there’s so much promoted content on your feed. With over one billion monthly active users it’s worrying that Instagram is a hub for sharing such a high amount of its unknowing users’ data.”
Tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and many others collect most of the user’s data for their personal marketing benefits and providing users relevant ads. But seeing Instagram and Facebook share most of the data with third-party companies is alarming, and it becomes the users’ responsibility to control what data they want to share with these apps. Though most of the data is collected without users having control over it, these apps do provide some options to limit what users want or do not want to share with the app.
